WINDSOR, N.S. – The weather in Nova Scotia this spring and summer is causing some troubles at pumpkin patches around the province.
“My total yield, I would say, came in only about 50 or 60 per cent,” says Danny Dill of Dill Farms in Windsor, Nova Scotia. “I had some rows that had nothing. Generally, there would have been hundreds in a row, and there wasn’t one pumpkin or one squash.”
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Dill is a fifth generation pumpkin farmer and he says he can’t recall a year like this one. He attributes the weak crop to weather, weeds and wildlife. A wet June created a haven for weeds that attracted the wildlife, like raccoons and deer. The hot sun through August and September caused what few crops there were to shrivel.
Meantime, those same weather conditions have meant a bumper crop for Annapolis Valley apple farmers.
“We had lots of rain and then through August and September we’ve had lots of heat and that’s what apples like,” says Beth Pattillo of Noggins Farm in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
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